1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector configured to retain a signal transmission medium when a latch lock claw is engaged with the signal transmission medium inserted in an insulating housing.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, in various electric devices, etc., as means for electrically connecting various signal transmission media such as flexible printed circuits (FPC) and flexible flat cables (FFC), various electrical connectors are widely used. For example, as electrical connectors used by being mounted on printed wiring boards like Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2011-108500 and Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2011-108501, those employing a so-called one-action auto-lock mechanism have been recently used. In such a lock mechanism, a latch lock claw elastically displaceably supported by a lock arm member is placed on the surface of the signal transmission medium comprised of a FPC, FFC, or the like inserted in a front-end-side opening of the insulating housing (insulator) and is displaced; and, then, engagement is carried out so that part of the latch lock claw is dropped in an engagement part of the signal transmission medium. When the electrical connector provided with the one-action auto-lock mechanism having this configuration is used, the signal transmission medium is retained in an approximately it mobile state only by inserting the signal transmission medium to a predetermined position in the electrical connector, and work efficiency is improved.
As described above, the electrical connector provided with the one-action auto-lock mechanism has an advantage that lock is carried out only by inserting the signal transmission medium (FPC, FFC, or the like) in the electrical connector. However, if external force is applied in a non-constant direction, for example, if the signal transmission medium (FPC, FFC, or the like) inserted in the insulating housing is pulled in a direction different from the original insertion/removal direction, the lock arm member may be elastically displaced toward a non-constant direction shifted from a specified moving direction by the non-constant external force, and the electrical connector may be damaged or broken, for example, the lock arm member may be plastically deformed.